‘Indira Gandhi’s life was part of the unfolding history of India,
intricately woven with India’s past and future. It (became) inevitable,
therefore, that politics (formed) a backdrop to her public and often
private actions.’ Indira Gandhi’s life spanned over two-thirds of a
century. By the time of her brutal assassination in 1984, she had
established herself as the most significant political leader India had
seen since the death of her father, Jawaharlal Nehru. In this book,
written with the close cooperation of her subject, Pupul Jayakar seeks
to uncover the many personalities that lay hidden within Mrs. Gandhi.
Much more than a political biography, the book reveals the complex
personality of Indira Gandhi—her thoughts and feelings, her hates and
prejudices, her insights and her faults, her loves and emotional
entanglements. Full of startling insights, Indira Gandhi: A Biography
paints a magnificent portrait—at once empathetic and unprejudiced—of one
of the twentieth century’s most remarkable women